Reservoirs in food dispensing systems, in particular beverage dispensers, require regular cleaning and sanitizing. Often, the reservoirs have translucid or transparent walls to enable the beverage or food to be displayed. These walls have a tendency to become opaque because of food debris and sediment being progressively deposited thereon and must be cleaned. These deposits can be difficult to remove with conventional detergents. The reservoir must also be microbiologically safe to prevent any risks of food contamination. Known methods to clean and sanitize beverage reservoirs rely mainly upon labor intensive activity by an individual. In most cases, the reservoir of a beverage-dispensing device must be taken apart and manually cleaned with a detergent and water. The reservoir is then rinsed with water and disinfected with an appropriate sanitizing solution before the unit is reassembled. Depending upon the amount of soil found on the surfaces of the reservoir, the time required to clean and sanitize a reservoir may take from 30 minutes to more than an hour. Also, the operator who performs the cleaning and sanitizing procedure must dedicate his/her time to this task and therefore becomes unavailable for other more valuable duties.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,688 relates to an alkaline cleaning system containing an alkaline detergent composition and an alkali stable continuous polymeric film that is soluble or dispersible in water that covers the alkaline detergent composition and prevents the operator from being exposed to the composition prior to use. The composition is in the form of a block or tablet that is dissolved in a single cleaning phase. The formulation, however, can only include active cleaning agents that are compatible when they are combined together in the block. This limits the use of combinations of very active cleaning and/or sanitizing substances.
There is a need for improved cleaning and sanitizing procedures for food and beverage reservoirs. To date, little has been done to simplify and/or reduce the amount of labor required to clean and sanitize these types of systems.